New instabilities of de Sitter spacetimes

We construct an instanton describing the pair production of non-Kaluza-Klein bubbles of nothing in higher odd-dimensional de Sitter spaces. In addition to showing that higher-dimensional de Sitter spaces have a nonzero probability to become topologically nontrivial, this process provides direct evidence for the association of entropy with cosmological horizons as well as evidence that non-Kaluza-Klein bubbles of nothing are a necessary ingredient in string theory or any other consistent quantum theory of gravity in higher dimensions.

Figure 1

Plot of ${\delta }_d/{\delta }_d(x=0)$ parametrizing the relative rate between de Sitter black hole and bubble production for $(d=5,k=1)$ (thick line), $(d=5,k=2)$ (thin line), $(d=7,k=1)$ (dashed line), $(d=9,k=1)$ (dot-dashed line) and $(d=11,k=1)$ (dotted line) versus $x=r_{+}/r_c$.